Chapter 17 Seven Days in New Orleans #3
They spent Wednesday night at a restaurant Mara had been saving, a small place in the Bywater with food so good Logan declared it better than his grandmother's cooking.
But they didn't linger. The pull to get back to the privacy of the hotel room was too strong, the knowledge that their time was limited making every moment feel precious.
Thursday, they took a day trip to the bayou. Mara showed him the wetlands and the cypress trees, explained the ecosystem while Logan asked questions and took photos and got entirely too excited about seeing an alligator in the wild.
"They're dangerous," Mara reminded him as he tried to get closer for a better photo.
"I'm Delta Force. I think I can handle a gator."
"Logan Reed, if you get eaten by an alligator on my watch, your team will never let me live it down."
He laughed but backed away from the water's edge. Later, sitting on a dock watching the sun set over the marsh, he pulled her into his lap and they watched the sky turn orange and pink and purple.
"I'm going to miss this," he said quietly.
"The bayou?"
"This. You. The way I feel when I'm with you." He kissed her temple. "I've been doing this job for twenty years. Never had trouble leaving before. Never had a reason to want to stay. But now I do."
"I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here when you come back."
"Promise?"
"Promise." She twisted to look at him. "This isn't ending Saturday, Logan. It's just changing shape for a while."
They drove back as the sun set, and by the time they reached the hotel, neither of them wanted to waste time with dinner or drinks or anything that kept them clothed and separated.
The door had barely closed before Logan had Mara pressed against it, his mouth on hers and his hands already working the buttons of her shirt.
"Bed," she managed between kisses. "We have a bed."
"Too far," he murmured against her throat, but he let her pull him across the room anyway.
Friday was their last full day together.
They stayed in bed until noon, ordering room service and feeding each other beignets while powdered sugar got everywhere.
Logan made love to her slowly that morning, like he was memorizing every inch of her, and Mara let herself be vulnerable in ways she never had with anyone else.
"I'm going to miss you," she whispered against his shoulder.
"I'm going to miss you too." He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips. "But we'll make this work. I'll come back as soon as I can get leave."
"And I'll be here waiting."
That night they went back to Frenchmen Street, to the same jazz club where they'd danced earlier in the week.
The band recognized Mara and called her up to the stage.
She sang one song, a classic jazz standard about love and longing.
Her voice was smoky and rich and Logan watched her with an expression that made her forget the words halfway through.
When she came back to him, he pulled her into a kiss that made the whole room disappear.
"You can sing," he said against her lips.
"Full of surprises." She took his hand. "Let's go. I want you to myself."
They went back to the hotel and the moment the door closed, everything that had been building between them all week finally broke free.
This wasn't gentle or slow. This was urgent and desperate and full of the knowledge that tomorrow he'd be gone.
Logan's hands were in her hair, her back against the door, and Mara couldn't get close enough.
"Mara," he breathed against her neck, and the way he said her name made her knees weak.
She pulled him toward the bed, shedding clothes as they went. "We don't have much time left."
"Then let's make it count."
They moved slower now, deliberate. Logan lifted her onto the mattress with care, following her down until their bodies aligned in a slow, full press of skin to skin.
The room glowed with the soft amber of the bedside lamp and the faint neon pulse from the Quarter below—light catching on the sheen of sweat already gathering at her collarbone, the hard line of his shoulder.
He paused above her, palms cradling her face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones like he was committing every detail to memory. Their eyes held, heavy with everything the morning would steal away: time, distance, this fragile new thing between them.
Mara reached up, fingers sliding into his hair, drawing him down until their foreheads met. She felt the tremor in his breath against her lips.
"I don't want to rush you," he murmured. "I want to taste every part of this night."
Her heart squeezed. "Then taste me."
He kissed her deeply, slowly—long, languid strokes of tongue that felt like promises.
His mouth traveled lower with the same unhurried reverence: the hollow of her throat, the sensitive spot beneath her ear that made her sigh, the slope of her breast where he lingered, sucking gently until her nipple hardened under his tongue and her back arched in quiet offering.
When he reached her stomach, he pressed open-mouthed kisses along the soft skin there, hands sliding down her sides to hook under her hips.
He eased her thighs apart, settling between them with a low hum of appreciation.
Mara’s breath caught as he looked up at her—eyes dark, intent, full of hunger and something softer, something that made her chest ache.
He started with feather-light kisses along her inner thighs, working inward until his breath ghosted over her center. Then his tongue—slow, flat, deliberate—dragged up the length of her in one long stroke that made her hips lift off the bed.
"Logan—"
He answered with a soft sound against her, vibrating through her core.
His hands held her steady as he explored her with devastating patience: circling her clit with the tip of his tongue, then flattening it to lap broad and slow, then sucking gently until her thighs trembled around his head.
When her fingers tightened in his hair, he slid two fingers inside her—curling them in that perfect come-here motion while his mouth stayed devoted to her clit.
The pleasure built in quiet, rolling waves rather than sudden crashes. Mara’s moans were softer this time, breathy and broken, each one pulled from somewhere deep. She felt herself tightening, climbing, the heat spreading outward until her whole body was taut and trembling.
He didn’t rush her toward the edge—he coaxed her there, steady and sure, until the orgasm unfolded like silk unfurling: long, luxurious pulses that rolled through her in slow, shuddering waves.
She came with his name on her lips, quiet and reverent, hips rocking against his mouth as he drank her through every aftershock.
Logan kissed his way back up her body, tasting of her, until he reached her mouth. She pulled him into a deep, lazy kiss, tasting herself on his tongue, her hands already guiding him between her thighs.
He reached for the nightstand, rolled on the condom with practiced ease. Then he settled over her again, notching himself at her entrance. Their eyes met—raw, unguarded—and he pushed in slowly, inch by careful inch, until he was buried deep, hips flush to hers, bodies locked in perfect stillness.
A shared breath. A shared heartbeat.
He began to move—long, rolling thrusts that dragged pleasure through them both in measured strokes.
Mara wrapped her legs around his waist, heels pressing into his lower back, drawing him impossibly closer.
Every glide was intimate, deliberate—his pelvis grinding against her still-sensitive clit in lazy circles that kept the heat simmering.
Their mouths met again and again—kisses broken only by soft gasps, murmured names, quiet admissions that felt too big for the room: “I don’t want this to end,” “Stay with me just like this,” “I’ve got you.”
He slipped a hand between them, fingers finding her clit once more, circling in time with his thrusts. The combination unraveled her slowly: first the tightening deep inside, then the spreading warmth, then the trembling that started in her thighs and climbed until her whole body bowed beneath him.
"Logan—" Her voice cracked, soft, almost pleading.
"I've got you," he whispered against her temple. "Come with me."
The second orgasm came like a slow, rising tide—cresting gently, then washing through her in long, rolling pulses that made her cling to him, nails pressing into his shoulders as she shuddered around him.
He followed moments later, hips pressing deep one final time as he spilled inside her with a low, broken groan—face buried in her neck, body trembling in perfect echo of hers.
They stayed joined a long moment, breathing together, until he eased out gently. He disposed of the condom and came back to her immediately, pulling her into his arms, legs tangling, chests pressed heart-to-heart.
Afterward, Logan collapsed beside her, both of them breathing hard. Mara turned her head to look at him, sweaty and satisfied and grinning like an idiot.
"What?" she asked.
"Just thinking about how this week turned out way better than I expected." He reached over and took her hand, threading their fingers together. "And I had pretty high expectations."
"Same." Mara squeezed his hand. "I don't want you to leave tomorrow."
"I don't want to leave either. But we'll figure it out. Video calls, texts, visits when we can." He rolled onto his side to face her. "This doesn't end just because I'm going back to North Carolina."
"Promise?"
"Promise." He kissed her softly. "Whatever we have to do to make this work, we'll do it."
They eventually dozed off, tangled together more from necessity than romance in the small hotel bed.
When Mara woke a few hours later, Logan was still asleep, his arm heavy across her waist. She watched him for a moment, memorizing the way he looked peaceful and unguarded, before carefully extracting herself to use the bathroom.
When she came back, he was awake, checking his phone. "It's almost dawn. We should probably try to get a few more hours of sleep before my flight."
"Probably." But neither of them moved to actually sleep. They lay there talking quietly about nothing important until the sun came up and it was time to face reality.
Saturday morning came too soon. Logan had a flight at noon. They had breakfast at Café Du Monde one last time, both of them quiet but connected in a way that went beyond words. The week had changed them both.
At the airport, Logan pulled her aside before security. "I'll call you tonight. As soon as I land."
"You better."
"And I'll be back. First leave I get, I'm coming back here." He cupped her face. "This week with you, it meant something. You know that, right?"
"I know. It meant something to me too." Mara kissed him, not caring about the people rushing past. "Now go before I do something stupid like ask you to stay."
"Would you?"
"In a heartbeat. But you have to go back. Your team needs you. And I have work to do too."
"Yeah." He kissed her one more time. "This isn't goodbye. It's just see you later."
"See you later, Logan."
She watched him go through security, watched him turn back one last time to wave, watched until he disappeared into the crowd. Then she walked back to her car and sat there for a moment, letting herself feel the loss before she had to put on her game face.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Logan already. "Miss you already. Tonight, video call?"
"Wouldn't miss it," she typed back.
Mara drove back to L'Abri S?r thinking about everything that had happened in seven days. They'd gone from carefully texting to something she couldn't quite name yet but that felt important. Real. Worth fighting for.
The team was waiting when she got back. Nadia took one look at her face and smiled. "That good?"
"Better. We're doing this. The long-distance thing."
"You're really into him," Winter said. Not a question.
"Yeah. I really am." Mara couldn't help the smile that spread across her face.
Quinn pulled up her tablet. "We have three new potential targets. Been waiting for you to get back."
And just like that, reality came rushing back. The work. The missions. The reason L'Abri S?r existed. Mara felt the shift inside herself, the operator returning even as part of her heart stayed in New Orleans.
"Alright," she said. "Let's see what we've got."
The week with Logan had been perfect. But now real life was waiting. She had a job to do. People depending on her.
But she also had Logan. Had his voice every night. Had whatever this thing between them was becoming and the promise that distance wouldn't kill it.
It wouldn't be easy. Nothing worth having ever was.
But for the first time in years, Mara felt like she had something worth fighting for beyond the mission.
That was worth whatever came next.